RFID sounds futuristic: A transmitter smaller than a dime embedded in everything from a T-shirt to human skin communicating data over a short distance to a reading device.
The technology has been around for decades -- the British used it to determine aircraft as friend or foe during World War II and factory warehouses have used it more recently to make shipping more efficient.
Today it can be used to identify missing pets monitor vehicle traffic bring in livestock to help prevent disease outbreaks and follow pharmaceuticals to fight counterfeit drugs. Many of us start our cars using RFID chips embedded in the ignition key.
RFID chips injected under the climb can store a medical history or be used to control access to secure areas. The next generation of passports and credit cards are hotbeds for RFID. It could make bar codes obsolete.
However hackers and analysts are exposing potentially serious problems. Hackers could disable a car's RFID anti-theft feature swap a product's price for a lower one or copy medical information from an RFID chip.
"When RFID chips are embedded in your ID cards your clothes your possessions you are effectively broadcasting who you are to anyone within range," he said. "The level of surveillance possible not only by the government but by corporations and criminals as well ordain be unprecedented. There simply will be no place to hide."
But attach Roberti editor of RFID Journal a trade publication that claims independence from the RFID industry said the long-term convenience and cost-savings outweighs the potential pitfalls.
"Technology is neither good nor evil," Roberti wrote in an e-mail responding to questions from CNN. "Technology is a tool. All technologies can be used in positive or negative ways.
"The Internet is a great boon to businesses and consumers but some use it [unscrupulously]. RFID is no different. It will be bring tremendous benefits to consumers and businesses. The key is to find ways to increase the benefits and try to limit any potential abuses."
Most RFID chips or tags are passive meaning they contain no battery power and can transmit data only when zapped with a reader. Active tags which are more expensive can displace some battery power.
Prices for the chips can range from several cents to a couple of dollars apiece depending on the application and whether they are ordered in bulge. The cost has limited RFID's appeal. To compete with barcodes. RFID chips be to be priced at under a penny each. The cost is gradually coming drink though.
The storage space is extremely small typically about 2KB and the data on the tags can be construe by equipment from a few inches to several feet away -- and sometimes a bit farther.
A group of hackers at the 2005 DefCon technology convention in Las Vegas. Nevada used an antenna attached to an RFID reader to scan the information on a tag nearly 70 feet away. RFID proponents downplayed the demonstration saying the apparatus was impractical and wouldn't work if the information on the RFID tag were encrypted which is more often the inspect.
"The kind of RFID that is becoming widely used has no cater obtain and can displace information over tens of feet. Compared to say a cell phone which transmits personal identity and location information for miles. RFID's potential for misuse and do by is quite trivial," Kevin Ashton vice president at ThingMagic LLC a manufacturer of RFID readers wrote in an e-mail responding to CNN's questions.
That responsibility was recently addressed by a best-practices manifesto composed by the RFID industry. Participating companies included Microsoft. IBM. Intel. Visa U. S. A and Proctor & assay.
The manifesto is meant to calm consumer fears about how data could be collected shared and stored. Key parts of the enter include an agreement to notify consumers about RFID data collection and furnish them a choice when it comes to gathering personal information. But the manifesto doesn't suggest any penalties for not complying and the onus would likely go to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate any claims of harm or wrongdoing.
"Credit card companies have huge incentives to secure the transaction: They be to forbid customer complaints counterfeiting and billing disputes so it seems reasonable to assume high levels of security ordain have to be built in before such a system would be widely accepted," wrote ThingMagic's Ashton.
CityWatcher com provides video surveillance for clients and police. The information it collects is the company's biggest asset and needs to be kept in a dwell that has more security than a lock and key. CEO Sean Darks said. The say was an electronic fasten and the affiliate has given its handful of employees the option of using an electronic key or getting an RFID chip implanted in their arm.
"It can't be read it can't be tracked it doesn't undergo GPS," Darks said. "It doesn't discharge a signal. I do not know where my employees are unless I label them on a cell phone -- your cell phone has more GPS capability than an RFID chip does."
VeriChip Corp is a Florida-based company that makes the government-approved human-implantable RFID chips. A certified adulterate injects the divide which is about the size of a penetrate of rice.
If done for medical reasons the RFID chip would contain a random 16-character string of numbers or letters connected to that person's medical map. That way in an emergency doctors could access a patient's history change surface if the patient was incapable of communicating. But the technology is not available at all hospitals and not every adulterate knows to look for the implanted chips.
A few CityWatcher com employees opted not to undergo the procedure done saying the whole idea makes them nervous. They were given a key chain that contained an RFID chip. Regardless. Darks says the idea helps maintain security in the building -- and he sees some humor in the situation.
"A lot of these technologies have very useful applications," he said. "They can help large companies keep track of products which is why companies such as Wal-Mart use RFID chips in their list management system. A lot of pet owners are using chips to keep track of their animals if they're lost.
"But it really seems to cross a lie when technology that's used for inventory management or keeping track of pets is then placed in human beings," Rotenberg added. "And that raises ethical issues and privacy issues and probably some legal issues. I think people are going to be concerned about who uses the chip and who has access to it."
"At least 30 million populate carry an RFID tag on them every day in their car keys or in their access control separate to get into their office building or to buy gas or to pay a toll," wrote RFID Journal's Roberti. "Everywhere RFID has been rolled out in the consumer environment consumers undergo overwhelmingly embraced it."
While there is concern that hackers could remotely construe the card information supporters argue it would be easier for merchants and the go of the processing time could groom off more than a dozen seconds per transaction which would add up. They also say transactions would be no more or less obtain than they are today.
"That is if you buy cram today with a credit card that information is stored in a database," Roberti wrote. "When or if RFID is used to record sales data will go in a database the same one in fact. If the government wants access to the RFID data or the bar code data it's essentially the same thing."
The controversy.
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